Author: sherwin

  • Refurbished Late 2015 iMac MK482LL

    Refurbished Late 2015 iMac MK482LL

    I came across a good deal on a refurbished late 2015 iMac MK482LL. The brand new price for this particular model is $2299 but I was able to get it for $1599, plus 10% eBay Bucks. The promotion maxes out at $100 but I still consider it an additional discount. I’ve seen them as low…

  • Freenas on X79 and Intel 3930K

    Freenas on X79 and Intel 3930K

    I had some time this past weekend to clean up an old computer I no longer use. It was a X79 platform that was replaced by X99. For many months it has just sat there turned off. I did upgrade the old OS (Windows 7 Home) to Windows 10 Home. Recently, I lost my back…

  • Using USB SSD on 2014 MacMini

    Using USB SSD on 2014 MacMini

    Best Buy dropped the Mac Mini price by $100. Open-box versions got an additional 10% off. So the low-end MGEM2LL/A version was as low as $355. I had a $40 gift card, so I figured why not. I needed an Apple desktop at home anyway to replace a broken one from 2007 MB138LL/A. This Mac…

  • Anker SoundBuds Bluetooth Earbuds

    Anker SoundBuds Bluetooth Earbuds

    I got tired of waiting for the Apple Airbuds to become available. On top of that, they are $160. It’s no surprise, it is an Apple product and I am looking forward to using the W1 chip for easy hand-off between Apple products. I’ve been without a bluetooth headset since losing my old LG HBS-730.…

  • My Recent Jury Duty Experience

    My Recent Jury Duty Experience

    I wanted to share my recent experience with jury duty. As you know, jury duty is an important public service a citizen can provide. I initially had a different point of view whenever I get a summon. But luckily my current employer pays me to go to jury duty and my view has changed. The…

  • Expanding Storage on Synology DS1815+

    Expanding Storage on Synology DS1815+

    I still have about half of my storage available on my Synology DS1815+ NAS and I’m only using 5 of the 8 bays. But I no longer needed my Synology DS212J. This was using 2x 4TB HGST Coolspin hard drives. I had it configured for a RAID0 to back up data off the DS1815+. I…

  • Western Digital Elements WDBU6Y0020EESN

    Western Digital Elements WDBU6Y0020EESN

    Staples recently had Western Digital Elements 2TB on sale for $60. I just got a new 2016 Macbook Pro, I figured I need an external drive for backups (Time Machine) as well as a storage drive. Now $60 for a 2TB portable drive is a very good price. I jumped on it and received it…

  • WordPress.com API

    WordPress.com API

    Did you know there is an API for not only WordPress but WordPress.com? I guess they are fairly similar except one is used for self-hosted WordPress blogs while the other is used for the blogs hosted by WordPress.com. Recently, I have migrated of self-hosted WordPress and into using WordPress.com as a host provider. Previously I…

  • Surprise! 2016 MacBook Pro ‪‎MLH42LL‬ – first thoughts

    Surprise! 2016 MacBook Pro ‪‎MLH42LL‬ – first thoughts

    I’ve been on MacOS since 2003. It’s a great platform to use and develop on. I’ve had three Macbook Pros (2006, 2009, 2011). The 2006 still runs but runs very slow and is no longer supported. I gave the 13″ 2009 to my wife. My 2011 died late 2015. Now I’m without a Mac to…

  • Curl Error 60 with SSL Certificate

    I am writing an app using the TMDB API. It uses CURL to access the API. I get the following error.   Here is how I fixed the error. Download and save the PEM file to your PHP installation directory / extras / ssl / cacert.pem. Edit your php.ini file. Enable the entry curl.cainfo =…